As we together breathed the air of heaven.
Stranger to me, yet inwardly akin,
Beloved at once I felt graved on my heart
'Tis she, or none on earth."
On April 24, 1793, the double betrothals between the two royal sons of Prussia and the two Mecklenburg princesses were celebrated at Darmstadt. At the encampment of Mainz, Goethe saw the royal brothers and their fiancées walking through the canvas streets. Hidden in his own tent he was entranced by their charms: "Amid all the terrible and tumultuous memories of the war, the recollection of those two young ladies rises up before me like a heavenly vision, which having been once seen can never be forgotten." Princess Louisa may not even have known of Goethe's presence in the camp, but she knew his works well and admired especially his shorter poems. She certainly cherished the recollection of her stay in the great poet's house at Frankfort, in recognition of which Prince Charles Frederick of Mecklenburg had presented to Frau Goethe, as a token of thanks, a beautiful snuffbox which was to her almost a sacred relic.
On December 21st, Prince Charles Frederick, with his daughters and their grandmother, arrived at Potsdam, where they were awaited by the impatient bridegrooms. It was a day of universal joy, and every window of the city was illuminated when the royal visitors passed under the triumphal arch. Two days later there was a solemn entrance into Berlin. Universal was the admiration excited by the uncommon beauty and unaffected grace of the princesses. The foundation of Queen Louisa's popularity was laid. On Christmas eve, 1793, all the members of the royal family assembled in the apartments of the queen, where the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed upon Louisa's head. The entire court then betook themselves to the apartments of Elizabeth Christine, the unfortunate widow of Frederick the Great. What a contrast between this happy union of love, and that of the poor Princess of Brunswick who had been forced upon the unwilling Frederick! We learn from the court records that Louisa's bridal dress was entirely of silver lace, simply made, but that her corsage glittered with diamonds corresponding to those of the crown on her head.
This is not the place to dwell upon the home life of the royal couple, their happiness, their seclusion from the atmosphere of that corrupted court, Louisa's studies, especially of Shakespeare and the German classics, and the unconscious influence of purity that emanated from her presence. A sad time was approaching, and forebodings of political evil were not wanting. The king, whose private life had undermined his health, was slowly dying; but before the crown prince ascended the throne Louisa bore him two sons, both of whom were to be kings of Prussia, the second son was to be even Emperor of Germany and the restorer of the ancient glories of the empire. Louisa's husband, however, gentle, honest, upright, and his noble queen, the best beloved that ever ruled over Prussia, paid politically the penalty for their private happiness. The great statesman Von Stein rightly deemed him inadequate for the gigantic mission of reforming the decadence that had been going on steadily since the death of Frederick the Great: "I love him," he said, "for his kind, benevolent nature, his well meaning character; but I pity him for living in this iron age, in which to enable him to maintain his position, but one thing is necessary: commanding military talent, united with that reckless selfishness which can crush and trample everything under foot, and is ready to enthrone itself on corpses."
Nevertheless, the queen loyally aided her consort in his effort to improve the condition of the realm. Their travels through the provinces and the newly acquired Polish territories had a good effect. The domestic life of the royal family was a model one and made for morality in the lives of their subjects. The royal couple were patrons of arts and letters, and Queen Louisa was particularly enthusiastic in support of culture. But soon the wheel of fortune turned; the king, pacific in the extreme, did not recognize in time that, unless he would join in the coalition against the overweening pride and power of France, Prussia would, single handed, be compelled sooner or later to meet that power. The battle of Austerlitz prostrated Austria completely, and the doom of Prussia approached.
In the years of threat and war Queen Louisa lost a beloved son, Prince Ferdinand, and the sorrow alarmingly aggravated her previous indisposition. The waters of Pyrmont restored her somewhat, and as for a time painful political events were kept from her, the change of scene and the affections of her relatives and dearest friends brought to her once more a glimpse of happiness, the last that was to come into her brief life. Yet her constitution had been shaken by the harassing anxieties of the situation, and added sorrow was soon to fall upon unhappy Prussia. The army was repeatedly defeated, and blow after blow fell upon the unhappy country. The queen and her children fled to the confines of the realm, to Konigsberg, the coronation city of the Prussian kings. There her third son, Frederick Charles, fell ill with typhoid fever. The child recovered, but his mother contracted the disease and again went down to the brink of death. The famous physician Hufeland describes the anxieties of the crisis: "The queen was in the utmost danger, and all night long the wind howled terrifically. . . . The wind was so strong, it blew down a gable of the old castle. By the blessing of God the queen passed over the crisis of the fever, and was beginning to rally, when suddenly came the news that the French were approaching. It was feared that the queen was not strong enough to bear removal, and it was therefore put off as long as possible, but she begged to be taken away, quoting the words of King David:
'I am in great straits: let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great: and let us not fall into the hands of men.' In a blinding snowstorm and a heavy wind the queen and the delicate prince travelled for three days along the strand of the Baltic to Memel on the Russian frontier on their tedious, painful journey to exile, knowing not whether they would ever return. Hufeland reports in his diary: "The queen spent the first night in a miserable room with a broken window, and we found the melting snow was dropping on her bed. We were very much alarmed on her majesty's account, but she was full of trust and courage, and the fortitude with which she suffered, gave us strength to act. I cannot say how thankful we felt when we came within sight of Memel, and just at that moment the sun burst gloriously through the clouds for the first time since we had been on this journey, and we hailed it as a happy augury." In Memel the queen recovered, though living under the most distressing circumstances.